Readings - http://www.usccb.org/nab/101010.shtml
Over the years, I’ve been asked a number of times by various parishioners to post my homilies online. Indeed, some years ago, I did that for about 6 months, when I created a geocities based page (geocities has since gone defunct) for Annunciata’s youth group. Anyway, I’ve decided to give it a shot again, and so here we go...
As always in Ordinary Time, the Sunday Readings touch some aspect of our daily lives and offer us the opportunity to reflect on this aspect and to find Jesus and the Good News present within it.
This Sunday, the Readings challenge us to reflect on how we choose to interact with people who we don’t particularly respect or like.
In the First Reading, Naaman, a military commander, indeed, general from a neighbor of Biblical Israel seeks assistance for healing from the prophet Elisha. And initially, Elisha dudn’t even want to meet with him. Instead, he had word sent to him to go to the Jordan River to get cleansed.
It may have been Elisha’s expectation that Naaman, a pagan, would not be healed, and since his country was found on the other side of the Jordan River from Israel, would then simply pick himself up (after not getting healed) and go home without Elisha ever having to have to deal with him directly. Instead, Naaman is healed, and comes back, GRATEFUL, to thank Elisha. And seeing Naaman coming back, healed, one could imagine Elisha saying to himself “Damn!”
Now here it must be noted that Naaman came from a country, Aram, that Israel not only didn’t like but did not particularly _respect_. Unlike Assyria, Babylonia or Egypt (the great empires of the time), Aram was like Edom or Moab or Israel/Judah for that matter - a “b-player." Thus Aram was deemed by the people of Israel/Judah at the time of not being worthy of either affection (the Arameans were pagans after all) or respect (because Aram, like biblical Israel, militarily scared _no one_).
So Elisha did not deem Naaman, a “military commander” from a not particularly threatening if rival state bordering Israel, worthy of his time and consideration. It must have come as something of a surprise to Elisha that Naaman appeared to be worthy of God’s time and consideration, enough so, that God healed the man.
In the Gospel Reading as well, Jesus is confronted by 10 lepers asking for healing. All were healed, yet only one, a Samaritan, again from an ethnic group that the Jews of the time did not respect, comes back GRATEFUL, to say THANK YOU. Jesus asks the man, where are the other nine (most of which were presumably Jewish, that is, of the "more correct," "orthodox," "higher" group at the time)?
So we are invited to ask, who are the people we deem “not worthy of our time and consideration?”
In our part of the Chicago, it would be easy to take this in a racial direction – after all, the “Anglos” (actually mostly Poles and other Slavs with some Italians and others) have lived together with the Hispanics (mostly Mexicans, with a smattering of Puertoricans added to the mix) _for decades_ though often enough not particularly cordially.
But the story can be taken more generally. Who are the people that we don’t particularly respect?
I know that I have trouble with people who come across as particularly “needy.” I’ve had to deal with people who’ve come to confession, not to confess anything, but simply to talk. They talk so fast and for so long (seemingly 5-10 minutes at a time, without taking a breath) so as to try keep one from cutting them off. And yes, I find this very annoying, even though stepping back, I do understand.
I remember when I was still studying chemistry, and I’d be asked at a party “what do you do?” And I knew I had about a minute and a half to tell them when I do before their eyes glazed over. And so, often enough, I tried to explain but it was largely pointless. Almost always, I got the response “You must be smart” and it wasn’t meant as a compliment.
One of the advantages of being a priest is that pretty much everybody knows what a priest is and what a priest does. The person still may not like what a priest does or what a priest represents, but I don’t have to go through this exercise.
So I of all people ought to be more patient with the people, so obviously broken and who so obviously need someone to talk to, who come to me and talk 15-20 minutes without taking a breath about everything under the sun from their very point of conception to the present moment without confessing fault in anything or leading all this up to a request for money. But often, I confess, I’m not that patient, and though it’s often impossible to stop such a desperate person once he or she starts talking, I do find myself resenting being “taken hostage” in this way.
Yet, if even someone like me, who like Elisha in the first Reading is supposed to be representing God in the matter does not find it possible to give a person in clear need the time of day, what does that say? So obviously, I have to work on my patience.
But it’s also a challenge really for everyone as _people of faith_. Who are we disrespectful to, and do we realize that no matter how annoying that person may be, that person is still a beloved child of God, the God who loves _us_ too?
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